Canberra, Aug 29 : Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg on Sunday warned that the country’s country economy will suffer if leaders do not stick to the national plan to reopen from coronavirus lockdowns.
Federal, state and territory governments in July signed off on a roadmap out of the pandemic that will start when 70 pe rcent of the adult population is fully vaccinated against Covid, Xinhua news agency reported.
However, some state premiers have since cast doubts over the plan amid recent outbreaks and lockdowns in the nation’s major cities, Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne.
In response, Frydenberg said it could lead to a “ridiculous” situation where Australians could travel freely overseas but not interstate.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) will on Wednesday release the national accounts figures for the second quarter of 2021, which are expected by some economists to show the economy shrink.
Australia registered a new record number of Covid-19 cases, as 1,323 new locally-acquired infections on Sunday.
Of the news cases, 1,218 were from New South Wales (NSW), Australia’s most populous state with Sydney as the capital city.
Victoria, the second-most populous state with Melbourne as the capital city, reported a further 92 new local cases, and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) recorded another 13, which takes the number of total cases associated with this outbreak in Canberra to 250.
Since the onset of the pandemic early last year, Australia has reported 49,937 confirmed coronavirus cases and 993 deaths.(IANS)